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Robot Spaceplane To Launch In 2008
FleaPlus writes "The US Air Force has announced that it is developing an unmanned reusable spaceplane, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. The first launch is in 2008 on an Atlas V rocket. The X-37B will be one-fourth the size of the Space Shuttle and serve as a testbed for technologies for future reusable spacecraft. Its predecessor, the X-37, was drop-tested from the Scaled Composites White Knight mothership earlier this year."
Given that the U.S. government and military has made it obvious that it plans to dominate space I would guess this project has far more ambitious intents than simple orbital research. A small unmanned shuttle would provide the perfect capabilities for detection, destruction, and possibly even retrieval of "enemy" satellites. Add some radar absorbing materials/techniques to the X-37B mini shuttle and you have the perfect space based weapon.
A few of these shuttles in orbit at any one time could provide the ability to quickly take out other countries space capabilities without being as obvious as using a ground based laser or missile. Plus it would be far more accurate.
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
On the other hand, we don't know what to call it other than "Buran" because the Soviet Space Transportation System (SSTS?) was never given a proper name other than letting people call it Buran.
By the way, does anyone know what kind of reentry vehicle -- lifting body, straight wing, delta wing -- this thing is?
The Russian and U.S. "capsules" were blunt body reentry vehicles -- some were ballistic, others used an offset CG for a small amount of hypersonic lift to mitigate the G-load and thermal load of reentry. Apollo along with the Russian Zond used offset CG to good effect for reentry from lunar distance. All landed mainly by parachute with either crushable couch struts to mitigate a land impact (Apollo, if they had to go down on land) or braking rockets -- the Russians may have crumped a Soyuz with a landing rocket failure, resulting in broken teeth.
The Shuttle famously uses a delta wing that produces a large amount of lift everywhere from hypersonic reentry down to the subsonic landing speed, and this famously drove up the cost and weight. Max Faget had a straight-wing Shuttle proposal that was equally famously rejected, both on the idea that straight-wing craft have nasty hypersonic handling (think Yeager and his tumble in the X1A, his tumble in the NF104, and Mike Adam's accident in the X15) along with the Air Force wanting the Shuttle to have more hypersonic cross range. But Faget's explanation of the thing is that the straight wing vehicle pancaked in -- it didn't really fly on those wings in hypersonic reentry -- and the straight wing Shuttle was like a cookie cutter applied to an Apollo heat shield, and the control of blunt body reentry with offset CG for some small amount of lift was well tested. But the Faget Shuttle would have to do some kind of Alley Oop maneuver at subsonic speed to transition from a full stall pancake attitude to proper flight on those straight wings, and there was some concern about doing that stall recovery safely.
Then there was the DC-X, the closest thing to a Buck Rogers spaceship from the 1930's comic books, which was to reenter as a blunt body (don't remember if it was nose first or tail first) but land on its tail using rocket thrust. Of course the DC-X on landing is this big mainly empty fuel tank so it is not going that fast before the rockets cut in for landing, but if the rockets fail, you are going to crump that thing.
Perhaps the only new thing under the sun for reentry (although not an orbital reentry) was the Rutans' "shuttle cock" folding tail where they reentered with a stable, high drag configuration and then straightened the tail for atmospheric flight and landing.
NASA wants to go back to the Apollo style reentry and landing but probably on land using parachutes and landing rockets like Soyuz and the Chinese spacecraft. You save big time on weight and there are safety advantages in terms of heat tile damage, but this low-control landing has problems of its own. Do you suppose NASA could wait awhile on the outcome of this Air Force project to see how it turns out?
Still, fairly impressive a fully automated launch and landing. 25 atmospheric flights were also conducted with the OK-GLI model (comparable to Space Shuttle Enterprise).
See this site for cool videos of the launch and general Buran eye candy.
The jet powered takeoff is a particularly intriguing sight given the reputed brick like qualities of the Shuttle/delta design.
It's worth noting that a high speed suborbital spaceplane was actually mentioned in the History Channel's program on Area 51, some years ago. The man who mentioned it in the program, Mark Farmer, speculated that its' use would primarily be as a fast international troop dropship, although this article does not seem to indicate that.
The HC program also mentioned how it had been later discovered that aircraft such as the AR-71 Blackbird were being developed at Groom some time before official public announcements were made, and that aircraft whose existence was continually officially denied would suddenly be released to a museum after they had been decommissioned. This article possibly lends more evidence in support of that being the case.
Even from a purely empiricist, non UFO perspective, it is tantalising to wonder about what other things they're possibly cooking up under the ground out there, as well...especially considering both the amazing technological advancement and aesthetic beauty of the aircraft we have already seen produced by the facility. This article and the historical cases (such as the Blackbird and stealth programs) also possibly lend hope to the idea that given enough time after the development of the individual inventions/aircraft, we will eventually be able to find out.
The Chinese are screwing with us just like the Russians did, and it's all part of the game. The only, and I mean only time anybody had better touch a satellite in anger (with enough oomph to disable it, not just "tickle" the sensors") had better be in the case of an all-out strategic nuclear war. You do not take away the ability to detect certain events; for the most part you kind of want your so-called enemy knowing what you're doing. In other words: nobody make any sudden movies. And of course the downside is that if all your stuff in a region goes offline simultaneously you'd better get B-2s off the ground, ICBMs primed, and issue execution orders to your boomers.
I don't think we'll start flying Chrome Dome missions again, but if Taiwan (probably the only likely Sino-US conflict) looks like it may get hit in a near future scenario then I'm sure there are plans in place. It's been said that NSA already has a small field station on the island, and China's going to keep screwing around until Taiwan decides to develop nukes. If China didn't have it's head up the keester of our economy I'd advocate giving Taiwan a couple dozen nuclear tipped Tomahawks.
"Crew launch vehicles can be made safer at less cost if they aren't also being asked to carry heavy cargo loads"
The Ares 1 rocket, which will launch the crew capsule of future moon missions is, by most standards, a heavy launch vehicle. It has a low-earth-orbit payload comparable to the delta IV - Heavy, titan 4, and Atlas 5 Heavy. It is also not a cheap rocket. The Atlas 5 on which this test vehicle will be launched, costs a couple hundred million dollars to launch.
While there are efforts to make space cheaper, I'm not sure that this is one of those. This used to be a join air force & nasa project. Now that Nasa is putting it's bets on CEV and Ares, it's interesting that the air force is funding this alone. Whatever the motive is, it's something military, not cheap-space access. Skip-bombers maybe?